A variety of automatic, semi-automatic and manually operated mechanisms have been introduced to simplify, accelerate and standardize the process of paper sheets and document folding, thereby expediting their insertion into envelopes.
The most popular triple folding method, if performed manually, requires substantial skill or time and is tiring and unkempt when large volumes of mail have to be handled.
Heretofore two main types of paper sheets folding mechanisms have been evaluated.
Automatic paper sheets folding mechanisms with a complex feeding, holding and buckling actions are described in various sources and patents. The most typical representation of these mechanisms is offered in U.S. Pat. No. 5,000,432 by Marek Krasuski, et al. or U.S. Pat. No. 5,114,395, by Richard J. Abramson. These devices are developed in order to handle large volumes of identical sheets of mail and have restrictions as to the number of sheets in the stack as well as their orientation and alignment. They can be described as complex, power driven mechanisms with multiple rollers and an elaborate sequence of motions, providing a fast folding process for the properly inserted sheets of paper. Both price and maintenance of automatic folding mechanisms can be prohibitive either for private or business office use.
Suggested manual folding mechanisms are rare, bulky, inefficient and too expensive to justify either their widespread production or utilization. One of the manually operated folding guides, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,500 by Samuel C. Smith, consists of a table top horizontal surface with two side flaps, which, when folded sequentially on top of the main horizontal surface, generates two creases on the paper sheet, located on top of the device. This unit requires careful orientation, positioning and insertion of the paper under the specially provided side holding tabs before the start of the folding process. The device is complex in use and in production, equipped with additional resilient flap opening elements, occupies substantial working space and requires a sequence of multiple operations, including the insertion of paper sheets, location of said paper under special guides or retainers, closing and opening of said flaps, as well as the following steps of removal of the creased but unfolded document.
It would be highly desirable, therefore, to have a manually operated, hand held paper folding device, which will have no mechanical or electrical components, will assure the aligning and uniform triple folding of multiple sheets of paper in one motion, will assure easy insertion and extraction of those sheets in folded condition, will be light, user friendly, affordable and portable.